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I want to share my own reactions to the name change since this is a really interesting topic. For context, I'm an African American, so many of my ancestors were

• LudwigNagasena 6y ago
  > For context, I'm an African American > My immediate reaction was, "this change is by white people for white people," where "white" means anyone who isn't black. > My next reaction was, "they may be changing the name for the wrong reasons, but the change is brilliant." This is exactly what I would expect from a person with a deeply ingrained racial identity. > So, next time you are annoyed that you have to fix a script or you accidentally type master when you needed to type main, please just take a deep breath, change the name, and remember to reflect upon whether you have are subconscious habits or biases that work against diversity in tech. Well, I have reflected upon that, and I came to conclusion that it is people who base their identity on 19th century pseudo-science on kool-aid who are wrong, not me.
• armonraphiel 6y ago
  I'm African American & had the same reaction. At the time, the master->main switch felt completely pointless. But I came to appreciate the courage needed to actually commit. It's a signal that people do care. Issue is, most folk have no idea on how to meaningfully contribute towards a lack of representation.
• ratamattat 6y ago
  How exactly did it break your workflow? The change only affects new repositories and doesn't prevent you from creating a master branch on those new repositories. You're even able to set any branch name as default on a user, org, or enterprise level.
  • jssmith 6y ago
    I don't remember exactly how it broke the first time, but the cognitive overhead shows up in various places. E.g., start a new project, create a branch, then merge back to master... oh wait, it's main now? But then I'm back to an old project, or another person's project, so let me look up what name I need to be using, etc...
  • dleslie 6y ago
    I had a bunch of scripts that would automatically clone repos and ensure that they were pointing at the correct branch; they started breaking when the branch names started changing.
    • 8note 6y ago
      Assuming branch names don't change on a package you don't control seems like the real issue?
      • dleslie 6y ago
        Until recently the base branch of git repositories was fairly stable. Coming from a long history of revision control systems where the base branch was incredibly stable.
    • dmingod666 6y ago
      Lolz! GitHub did not change any branch names - they only changed the default help text file that suggested a command you can use to initialize a new repository.. that's it... If someones existing repo changed their own branch name then it was the decision of that repo owner.. not related to anything GitHub did - technically if you see what's happening, Github barely did anything for this change..
• cheez0r 6y ago
  This. These changes to remove subconscious bias from our language are necessary. They are microaggressions which the average user doesn't even realize exist- but which do harms to some individuals in our society. This may be a minority group within our society- even a very small fraction of a percent- but removing biases which are perceived as harmful is one way that we as an organization demonstrate that we are being actively inclusive to all, instead of falling back on habits developed to favor, or carrying the embedded biases of, one social or cultural group. I look at it like ADA requirements for language. If you have a curb a wheelchair user can't climb, that's a harm to that individual- and so we require actions, by law, to ensure that wheelchair users are accommodated in our society. 30 years ago the similar complaints were made against ADA ramps, handicap-accessible restrooms, etc.- that they weren't really necessary because the minority who were being hurt by their absence were such a minority, and weren't really the target served population of the organization, etc. That was anti-inclusivity- and so we passed the ADA and support accessibility for all in our organizations- and nobody these days chafes at it at all, for the most part. Removing harms from how organizations execute their business operations is part of inclusivity. It's not cargo culting, it's not engaging in a self-pleasuring but pointless behavior, it's not a meaningless act that carries no value- it's ensuring that our organization does as little harm to folks as possible as we move forward doing business in the world.
  • honkdaddy 6y ago
    >They are microaggressions which the average user doesn't even realize exist- but which do harms to some individuals in our society. Just so I'm understanding this point of view correctly, every time I or any other dev types git checkout master, a micro-aggression is taking place and someone somewhere is indirectly suffering? I just can't take that line of thinking seriously, I'm sorry.
    • merouan 6y ago
      Not the parent, but your characterization of the stated perspective reveals quite well that you aren’t taking it seriously! This is a complex issue, so let’s treat it that way. The micro-aggression, as I understand it, is having to ask yourself whether the term ‘master’ _did_ originate from slavery (in the context of git, IIRC it didn’t, but master-slave replication is the stronger example). The context and plan fact is that programming, as a broad culture, to date, _has_ been excluding Black people and others. So it is not hard to imagine some folks desiring to make a symbolic change to make the culture more inclusive.
• conradfr 6y ago
  Or I'll reflect about an American company imposing change to the rest of the world about domestic issues.
  • cdelsolar 6y ago
    the author of this article is British
    • conradfr 6y ago
      But not the person I'm replying to.
  • sjm 6y ago
    So which utopian country do you live in where racism is not an issue?
    • conradfr 6y ago
      I never said that, I answered in the context of changing "master" and thinking about bias. FWIW I live in Paris, France and I think the tech scene is quite diverse here. And I'm not saying racism is not an issue, but I also have black friends that told me that they never experienced it.
      • Ragingweb 6y ago
        "I also have black friends" is anecdotal evidence at best. Regarding the diversity of the tech scene, it's not that good in France.
        • conradfr 6y ago
          Well ethnic studies are forbidden in France so it's hard to not relying on anecdotal data for this topic, so all I know is that I've got managers and colleagues of all colors.
• agloeregrets 6y ago
  This! Virtue signaling is worthless, but it does keep ideas fresh in people's minds when you experience it and that isn't worthless.
• geekraver 6y ago
  While there may be plenty of people of all races who were not offended by the name, when you operate at the scale of a GitHub there is going to be some percentage who are. Some of them will complain. A company like GitHub then has two main options: change the name, or defend not changing the name. Whichever one they pick is going to cause various forms of backlash from various people, but it’s pretty obvious that changing the name is more defensible and the better long-term approach.
  • eplanit 6y ago
    But, this argument rationales mob rule over reason. The name change is defensible to avoid "various forms of backlash from various people". "Some of them will complain" -- a majority? Then yes, it makes sense to listen and adapt. Or, a loud minority who threatens? I don't believe that the change was made due to any overwhelming user feedback.
  • _-david-_ 6y ago
    >it’s pretty obvious that changing the name is more defensible and the better long-term approach. Is it the better long-term approach? If you give in to a vocal minority what is stopping them from trying to change something else? Git means "an unpleasant or contemptible person". Surely that could be construed as offensive. What happens when / if a vocal minority decides Git and Github need to change their name? Should Github just change their name to prevent backlash? Not to mention it appears to be mostly white people pushing this change, not even the alleged victims.
  • deadbytes 6y ago
    No, this is a terrifying precedent to set. You are completely inverting democracy. If 98% of people vote that something isn't offensive, and 2% vote that it is, and your takeaway from this is "the thing is offensive", then how can anything ever be determined to be not offensive?
    • gamblor956 6y ago
      You are not required to change the name of your main branch on existing repos. If you really want to, you can use "master" as the name on your new repos. You simply have to manually type that in now.
• NwtnsMthd 6y ago
  Hm, never thought of it like that. I was caught off guard by the change when it was implemented, and was frankly quite annoyed. My suspicions were the same as the author's, that the reasons were likely insincere. But I never made the leap you did to (try and) assess my subconscious biases. Thank you for the insight! On an other note, 'main' is fewer letters to capture the same idea ad therefore more efficient.
  • optimiz3 6y ago
    Subconscious bias is the modern day original sin. It's creepily similar to the indoctrination technique of teaching people they are evil and can only be redeemed by following <belief system of choice>.
    • Glide 6y ago
      James Lindsey hit the nail on the head years ago comparing it to religion. I think you’re optimistic in your formulation that there is redemption in that system. That or it’s a very useful paraphrase.
    • mathw 6y ago
      Not really, because subconscious bias is actually real.
      • optimiz3 6y ago
        If it was significant and of consequence, my suspicion is it wouldn't stay subconscious for long. Original Sin is just as real to the worldview of millions over centuries as Subconscious Bias is to others.
      • svieira 6y ago
        So is Original Sin. Unless you believe than mankind is naturally depraved, in which case the state of the world makes perfect sense right now and cannot be changed. To delve into this a little bit more - if mankind is _by nature_ depraved / evil, then there is nothing more to say or do. We are fighting against our nature, trying to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps out of a morass which we were born into. There is no point in trying, because we are broken. We can only hope that the principle of sufficient reason (a cause must be sufficient to explain its effects) is false and that our AGI children will be able to be born free from our defects and destroy / save us. IFF mankind is not _by nature_ depraved, then either: * We are not currently depraved (and live in Eden [which seems ... unlikely]) * We are injured (in some way). The doctrine of Original Sin, looked at from a purely natural perspective, is the declaration that "man is not by nature depraved, but he is suffering from an ancient injury". Which is much more hopeful than any of the other options.
• colllectorof 6y ago
  > Thus it is a useful reminder of the implicit bias that contributes to the lack of diversity in tech. This is a useful reminder. It's a reminder that associative thinking can invert causal relationships and turn anything into a symbol for anything else. There is no rational limit to things that can be attacked this way. Someone can demand you to change the way you talk or dress, what you read or watch, how you do your job. The changes themselves can be anything and the only limit to their extent is your willingness to say no. And by the way, don't ever forget who is enforcing this. This is not your coworker individually asking you do something differently to accommodate them. This is coming top-down from one of largest tech corporation in the world.
  • ipsocannibal 6y ago
    Remember MS once told us 'Linux is Cancer'. Should we have believed them then? Now 'Microsoft loves Linux'. Which is it? I think which ever one aligns with their business interests at the time. That lens should used to view any change pushed by Redmond.
  • yarcob 6y ago
    > who is enforcing this Let's not exaggerate, they just changed the default for new repos, everyone is free to continue naming their branches "master" or "stable" or "trunk" or whatever they want.
    • deadbytes 6y ago
      You are right that nobody is being physically forced to make this change, but I think you vastly underestimate the power of propaganda and social pressure. In today's hyper-socialized society there is not really much difference between "you are forced to make this change" and "make this change or else you will be socially outcast by all your peers". Github is used by millions of developers all over the world. There is almost certainly at least one person in every western software company that regularly uses github. They have the power to broadcast messages into every software company in the western world, and right now this message is "make this change or you are racist".
  • 6y ago
• headhuntermdk 6y ago
  I generally agree with your statement. I am also an African American but my first reaction to the change was very positive. On a more technical and pedantic level, having a "master" branch really doesn't make any sense without slave branches. So in this context a "main" branch eliminates any negative historical connotations and has a more precise meaning. To me, this another case of "that's how its always been" and some people react very negatively towards sudden change. Related to this conversation: years ago Nikon removed the terminology of Master and Slave in their flash units in favor of Commander and Remote. https://petapixel.com/2020/07/08/nikon-says-it-stopped-using-the-term-slave-20-years-ago/ https://petapixel.com/2020/07/08/nikon-says-it-stopped-using... To the author: We have to start somewhere and it is a sign of progress (no matter how small) that finally there is some awareness around this issue and now something is being done about it
  • webstrand 6y ago
    "master" has been in use for decades in the recording industry, the "record master" does not, and never did, have any slaves. This terminology was incorporated into software, back in the CD-ROM days, with their "gold master" from which copies would be produced. I don't have a horse in this race, I just wanted to point out that the language is far more flexible than some people seem to think.
    • matt-attack 6y ago
      Christ just then verb “mastering”. I work in Hollywood at a big studio and mastering is incredibly common term for the process of ordering and creating digital masters. That is, the uncompressed “official” version of our movies that are used to for archiving and for creating other downstream versions of lesser quality. I’m actually wondering if I should create a tongue-in-cheek movement to renaming this term across studios. It’s incredibly ingrained.
    • ModernMech 6y ago
      > the "record master" does not, and never did, have any slaves. Are you sure about this? It seems the music industry is going through a parallel exercise. I'm not familiar with music industry terminology really, but it seems those who are disagree with you: "Following that thread, [Pharrell] Williams suggested that the company “get ahead of this and do the right thing. Start with the terminology — like ‘master’ and ‘slave.’ Master being the main recording and the slave being all the copies made.” ... Williams recalls hearing the loaded words “master” and “slave” paired in such a manner as a teen, when learning the ropes of the music business from R&B star Teddy Riley in Virginia Beach, Va. As his career took off, Williams spotted the terms woven into many of his contracts." https://variety.com/2020/music/news/pharrell-williams-master-slave-industry-contracts-1234729237/ https://variety.com/2020/music/news/pharrell-williams-master...
• imbnwa 6y ago
  Black SWE here as well, highly disagree with this. If Microsoft/Github wanted to issue "a useful reminder of the implicit bias that contributes to the lack of diversity in tech", they could've founded an non-profit dedicated to training and job placement for BIPOC and underrepresented white women, they could've kept a continuous banner on their site that linked to relevant legislation, initiatives, causes, etc. They changed the goddamned name of the master branch. You're gonna have to explain to me how changing that name makes much more significant headway than any initative I enumerated above or adjacently related. There's a lot of heavy lifting being done by "a useful reminder". I mean, you or I don't need reminders, that's what the article is about. As for the rest of the tech industry, its a crapshoot to even suggest even half would be moved by changing the name of the branch nevermind possibly not caring at all about the greater issue for whatever reason. The FTA is about continuous action that requires investment, you're applauding cheap, low-effort PR moves. This country, and you and I, deserve better than what amounts to yet another TikTok affirmation, and it's difficult to discern tangible value for actual Black people that someone somewhere thought to themselves as they typed 'git checkout main', "Ah, yes, let me reconsider the web of power-relations I'm enmeshed in". > So, next time you are annoyed that you have to fix a script or you accidentally type master when you needed to type main, please just take a deep breath, change the name, and remember to reflect upon whether you have are subconscious habits or biases that work against diversity in tech. There is no amount of reflection that is ever going to substitute the actual presence of Black folk in the tech workforce, and thinking we'll over come this waiting on some kind of ethical consensus that eventually leads to a beneficial outcome is not reflected by history, see Civil Rights legislation. Suggesting you're surreptisously altering behavior via minor language changes is just "spooky action at a distance" come alive. It lends the sense that someone is "effecting" outcomes without actually having to be accountable for actual outcomes occuring. The "postmodernists" (in quotes cause it tells you nothing, more accurate would be to call them postmarxist) developed something resembling this (predominantly American) language theory, though much broader in scope, looking at documents from the 19th, 18th, and early 20th century when there was a small elite regulating knowledge, language, and education. (the official language academies of France, Spain, early communities of biologists, crimonologists etc). Those conditions simply aren't the case today precisely owing to mass communication. All this that is accomplished by this (IMO as a former philosophy academic) complete bastardization of so-called "postmodern" language theory is a new out/game for standing institutions to play. The FTA points out how Microsoft is changing the name of master with their right hand, but supplying facial recognition software to police to identify protesters and mistake Black folk for Gorillas with their left hand.
• ipsocannibal 6y ago
  What habit is being changed? Aren't the default names defined by the git software? If so just change the software and push, but what habit was changed? Doesn't change current repos but why exactly is that the problem? If you are trying to set a precedent, i.e. stop the bleeding, then a git update would work just fine. Is it assuming that 'master' should be the default? The name 'master' doesn't have any special significance to the software interacting with it as the branch name is just an identifier. The term 'master' in the Comp. Sci. sense is jargon meaning basically 'the source of truth' not 'one that controls the wills of others'. The only habit I see being altered is to be readily conditioned to accept without question the dictates of political interest groups and large corporations as to what terminology is acceptable. Who defined these groups as the rightful arbitrators of this jargon? "So, next time you are annoyed that you have to fix a script or you accidentally type master when you needed to type main, please just take a deep breath, change the name, and remember to reflect upon whether you have are subconscious habits or biases that work against diversity in tech." In order words, the next time you have the urge to think critically about what you are allowed to type and who is forcing that decision upon you take a deep breath, shallow your skepticism, and reflect upon whether you have been indoctrinated enough into the new political Zeitgeist.
• eplanit 6y ago
  I appreciate learning your perspective. Frankly, though, the argument you make for accepting and embracing such things to me reinforces the notion that the BLM movement feels like forced cultural revolution. Though you are not coming across with any such tone, the idea seems like "shut up, and take your medicine".
  • dagmx 6y ago
    All cultural revolution is forced for those who do not benefit directly from it. Nothing worth fighting for comes easy. Women's rights, racial rights, gay rights... It all had to be forced to happen, because it's much easier to maintain an unfair status quo than it is to convince millions of people that perhaps their world view is wrong and holding others back.
    • mariksolo 6y ago
      Fighting for people's rights does not put an unnecessary burden on other people. Rosa Parks wanted to allow black people to ride anywhere on the bus, not make white people stand up and give them their places instead.
      • joshuamorton 6y ago
        For the people who were always able to sit in the front of the bus, having black people sitting there was a new burden, and meant they had to stand more often.
        • mariksolo 6y ago
          Certainly, but it was a burden in that it took away an unnecessary privilege. The point of the boycotts was ultimately not to put an extra burden on others to remind them of their privilege. The point of the original comment was that renaming master to main served as a reminder for people. But movements in the past that you were referencing never served a goal of solely putting burdens on other people.
• LunaSea 6y ago
  So you admit that you were not offended by it but would still like it to change and would also impose said change to everyone for a reason that has yet to be identified.
  • dang 6y ago
    Please do not post in the flamewar style to HN. We're trying for something different here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
• waheoo 6y ago
  Self censorship is never healthy [1]. A default, widely accepted value for the main branch of git repo had immense value from a usability perspective. Creating a confusing system and calling it beneficial because it becomes a reminder about bias as it interrupts your workflow? That's some post modern intersectional bullshit right there. I really don't care about the name change in this case, the OP was mistaken, master record also has roots in a master slave[tape] relationship. So please, change it, just do it upstream and leave me the fuck out of your culture war. [1] https://youtu.be/5fHvjM_4F6w https://youtu.be/5fHvjM_4F6w
• root_axis 6y ago
  As another black SWE, I'll add that I disagree with your perspective. I think the name change does more harm than good because it trivializes the movement. If the goal is to change minds and open hearts then where appropriate, we should endeavor to communicate in ways that will be well received by those who need to hear the message. Stuff like this is just preaching to the choir and alienating the rest, but also not actually changing anything that matters in the lives of black people.
  • toiletfuneral 6y ago
    this is a good point. There's a lot of attempts at fixing issues through optics and performative acts to show understanding but these gestures can be sort of awkward or totally unnecessary while potentially hypocritical if it isn't coupled with material changes.
  • bopbeepboop 6y ago
    They’re actually alienating the choir, with actions like that. I’m a white person who has performed in a professional production of The Black Nativity. I was literally part of the choir celebrating black traditions in the US. I now work in software and think less of any racialized group using historic struggles as a tool of power, control, and oppression in the here and now. Historic wrongs are not an excuse for present wrongs. Edit: pronouns are hard.
    • skinkestek 6y ago
      I guess by "you" you meant "they", i.e. those parent are talking about? I was mightily confused and had to read your post three times to get an idea of what you meant.
      • bopbeepboop 6y ago
        Errr.. yes. Poorly phrased.
  • wernercd 6y ago
    I'd extend these virtue signaling "moments" to stuff like changing the names of sports teams and bases and all of the attempts to scrub "offensive" things from our lexicon. It's not just limited to "black" but also American Indians, gay people, trans, etc. These all strike me as Priviledged people being offended for others and trying to scream "LOOK AT ME I'M FIXING THINGS!!!" with stuff that matters to no one... and in the end, they widen the divide and make everything 100x worse with all the policies to "fix" racism/sexism/all'the'other'isms but making everything about race/sex/etc. So divisive and counter productive uses of time that solve nothing.
• dustinmoris 6y ago
  The word master has so many meaning that it's quite difficult how a minority in SV has decided to reduce it to master/slave. The biggest genocide in human history was committed against the Jewish community. When is Microsoft going to change their vocabulary in order to raise more awareness of crimes against humanity and the genocide of Jews? Why is Microsoft still using words such as "concentrate" and "camp"? Microsoft employees tweeting things such as "which camp are you, GIF or JIF". Isn't that plain offensive to Jewish people? Why is Microsoft still using words such as "work", calling employees "workers" when we all know too well that that the Nazis used "Work makes free" (Arbeit macht frei) as their slogan for Auschwitz? Lots of Majors commanded the killing of Jewish people, yet Microsoft uses the word "command" in all their software such as "SqlCommand" and many more. They call something a "major" feature or use phrases like "you can fire up a server" when we know that firing up things is the act of bombing and killing innocent people. It almost seems like that Microsoft is a Nazi organisation or why else would they use such obvious outrageous offensive and bigoted language in their every day communications? I'm not sure how Microsoft can be inclusive to all people including engineers from the Jewish community when they use such language.
  • wreath 6y ago
    Small correction but the holocaust wasn't the biggest genocide in human history. Obviously this isn't a competition nor it should be. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_genocides_by_death_toll https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_genocides_by_death_tol...
    • dustinmoris 6y ago
      Thanks, I should have done a better homework. I guess it's worth mentioning as well that the Holocaust is still extremely recent in terms of history and therefore quite surprising how people who put so much emphasis on language are so ignorant to this event.
      • wreath 6y ago
        Yes!
• veeti 6y ago
  Where does this line of reasoning end? Should we rename "master's degrees" even though there is no "slave" in this context (just like there is no slave branch in git)? I think it's important for students to take a deep breath and remember to reflect upon racism. For context, I'm Finnish and many of my ancestors were sold as slaves as well.
  • sneak 6y ago
    The "master" bedrooms in houses are now being called "primary" bedrooms by some realtors.
    • systemvoltage 6y ago
      This is insane and disgusting.
      • jfengel 6y ago
        That seems a bit of an overreaction, doesn't it?
        • systemvoltage 6y ago
          Using black justice as a pawn to further their own image and agenda? No. Not really. These realtors want to cash in on this bandwagon. I am disgusted, indeed.
          • jfengel 6y ago
            Let me just thank you personally for the money I'm getting out of this. I went into Social Justice Warrioring for the feel-goods, but the buttload of cash is definitely a nice bonus.
          • jgwil2 6y ago
            More charitable reading would be that they don't want to offend potential customers. I mean, I guess that can be seen as "cashing in," but then all good customer service could be dismissed in the same fashion.
• takeda 6y ago
  I'm white, but first generation immigrant. I think the change that GitHub did is as well for the wrong reasons. It's not because it is offensive, but because it might be reminding people of US history that many people are ashamed of (it reminds me of Aushwitz, the reason the place is still open and allows tourists is so we don't forget about it and won't repeat the history). The master in git wasn't even related to slavery, its meaning comes from meaning like master copy. I don't mind change if it is for the better, for example postgresql instead of master-slave uses master-standby which is much more accurate how the replication works. Perhaps using main by GitHub is better, but because of timing, it feels like it was made to help forget about that part of the history, which IMO is doing the opposite of what was intended.
• drngxn 6y ago
  > What's powerful about this name change is that it pushes us to alter a habit, in my case one embedded deeply in my fingers, something that I do every day without realizing that I'm doing it This is the entire point, this sentence right here.
  • nicky0 6y ago
    Because every time I have to stop to write main instead of master, I become less racist?
  • wtetzner 6y ago
    But why is it important to change that habit, if it has no beneficial impact?
    • josteink 6y ago
      To the avid anti-racist, the racism being there is a dogmatic fact. You cannot argue using reason that there is no racism to fight, because he has decided that there is, there must be. So to the anti-racist whatever action they do is perceived meaningful, even when completely absurd. It’s clearly a new kind of piety, a new kind if religion.
  • aksss 6y ago
    The sentence right there is what a lot of people find inane and absurd, though, too. It’s often less a case of people not “getting” what the nominal intention is; it’s that people do get the nominal intention and think it’s an idiotic waste of time that’s being done to satisfy a pretty ignorant and narrow-minded view of language and history. It also has no limiting principle to what gets targeted except the energy of ninnies. It’s worth considering now where your line of tolerance is going to be - the point where you think, “okay, this has become too ridiculous, even for me”. Is it when I suggest removing “chain” from blockchain because it evokes slavery? Point being that many people see this issue with GitHub as having crossed the line of absurdity already.
    • medium_burrito 6y ago
• onetimeusename 6y ago
  I disagree for three reasons. 1) The burden falls disproportionately on Git maintainers and on people with large amounts of dependencies to the old word which is not a good way to distribute work (across tech workers) when making changes especially since some people will not even notice the change. 2) Not everyone uses Git each day and I am certain that people who continue to use the word "master" without knowing a thing about what Git is will be viewed as racist and morally inferior. E.g. (Master of Ceremonies, Master of Arts, etc.). Explain how a tech worker can agree that "master branch" is offensive but putting that they have a "Master of Science" on their CV is fine. 3) Somewhat arbitrarily changing words with a tenuous relation to racism seems like an extremely passive aggressive, murky, and dangerous path to go down. Not only does it lay a trap for people to be accused of being racist but if this is acceptable it is inconsistent with not removing all words associated with slavery. Even words with a distant relation to slavery.
  • boardwaalk 6y ago
    “Master of Science” is simply a use of a different meaning of the word. If anyone is suggesting to not use “master” across the board, even in the sense of “being really good at something,” they can shove off. While the “master” branch is clearly using master in the sense that it asserts control of the other branches in some way. So IMO, explaining could be done by pointing at the dictionary.
    • optimiz3 6y ago
      > the “master” branch is clearly using master in the sense that it asserts control of the other branches in some way Master as in expert, meritorious of command, arbiter of truth. They all mean the same and you can't have a master's degree without a master copy of information. Control is exerted only by virtue of being correct.
      • nitrogen 6y ago
        Git's usage is clearly more like "golden master" in the recording sense -- the original from which other copies are made. Compare to other uses in technology that are far more directly related to control, and far less likely to change, e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_Peripheral_Interface https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_Peripheral_Interface
• blub 6y ago
  I've seen many replies, but not this one, so I'll chime in. I am not concerned about diversity in tech and this was never on my mind until it started getting shoved down everyone's throat by American companies and activists. Many European countries blindingly copy whatever comes out of the USA, so now it's here too. For me it's just one more annoying thing I feel that some privileged brats that I never met and don't care to meet are forcing others to spend time on.
• Igelau 6y ago
  > So, next time you are annoyed that you have to fix a script or you accidentally type master when you needed to type main, please just take a deep breath, change the name, and remember to reflect upon whether you have are subconscious habits or biases that work against diversity in tech. Which sounds okay(1) if all I'm working on is a simple document. If I'm in the larger context of making a change in code because it's breaking something somewhere else, the cognitive overhead of switching gears from "technical mode" to "political mode" to "what the heck was I really doing again?" is costly. (1) I had "great" but downgraded it to "okay" because literally no one is offended by this -- it's virtue signaling to make rich people feel like they look better.
• jimbob45 6y ago
  I vehemently disagree. Such virtue signaling is okay when one is on empirically high moral ground. If the lesson were “stay away from snakes” or “stop, drop, and roll”, there would be no possible debate over those topics and we might all agree that a frequent refresher would be welcome. However, there remains considerable discussion over oppression, race, and politics. For you to shoehorn in your personal viewpoint here immediately ends the discussion and implies that your side is right, when that may not be the case. Think about if we changed the names literally to “n-word” and “white whip”. You’d be just as disgusted as I am for the opposing side to claim empirical moral high ground and to force you to accept something that you don’t find to be a settled debate.
  • aksss 6y ago
    I think you mean "objectively", not "empirically". Your word choice is problematic as it invokes the authority and propriety of empire as the most rational form of governance. While we're arguing for linguistic purity tests, let's maintain some principled consistency here.
• HelloNurse 6y ago
  It's good that you find this GitHub initiative a useful reminder that racism can run very deep (including apparently harmless language), but for many people it is a reminder that: - GitHub prefers cheap virtue signaling not only to actually caring about racism, but to technical merit and customer service: the public pays for this PR stunt with *millions* of adjustments to their repositories and working copies - Branch names, and many other similar things, are now a battleground for freedom of expression, exposed to dangerous storms of political correctness - GitHub has the arrogance of trying to control how people call their branches, and ultimately people's political ideology through the manipulation of language For me and many others, the habit that is going to change (maybe slowly) is using GitHub.
  • ipsocannibal 6y ago
    Microsoft can't stop publishing shit code full of security holes that get hacked every other day. If you want your software project to go south in a hurry take a dependency on any Microsoft product. This should be reason enough to ditch M$.
  • krferriter 6y ago
    Almost none of what you just said is true. > - GitHub prefers cheap virtue signaling not only to actually caring about racism, but to technical merit and customer service: the public pays for this PR stunt with millions of adjustments to their repositories and working copies Neither git nor GitHub is forcing the branch names to change. git added the ability to specify a default branch instead of hardcoding it to 'master'. Github is taking this into consideration by allowing the users to specify their own default branch as well, and updating documentation and command examples to use 'main' as the default branch name. > - Branch names, and many other similar things, are now a battleground for freedom of expression, exposed to dangerous storms of political correctness No freedom of expression concerns here. You actually have more freedom now as git, GitHub, GitLab now make it easier to choose your own default/primary branch instead of hardcoding it to initialize to 'master'. > - GitHub has the arrogance of trying to control how people call their branches, and ultimately people's political ideology through the manipulation of language GitHub is not controlling anything. You, like always, can name your default branch 'master' if you want.
• stronglikedan 6y ago
  I did change a name because of this change, but the name I changed was Github. Fuck them and their stupid virtue signalling, because no matter how you cut it, that's really all it is.
• hintymad 6y ago
  I don't get this "implicit bias" concept. According to media and social media, if I deny that I'm a racist, then I'm just not aware of my implicit bias. Honest question, how is it this different from: 1, If you believe in Jesus, then you can walk on water. If you can't walk on water, then you don't truly believe in Jesus. 2, Chinese saying, "杀人诛心“，meaning that accusing one's motive is worse than killing that person, as the accused couldn't even defend against the accusation. Attacking the Motive is a logical fallacy, no? 3, Back in the 1960s in China, if you were born in a not-so-red family and denied that you were counter revolutionary, then you were just deeply counter revolutionary, and therefore deserved more severe punishment. Since when people are not judged by their behavior but their thoughts that someone else assert?
  • mplanchard 6y ago
    Honest answer, generally people aren’t talking about judging people for their implicit biases, but asking them to be aware of them to prevent those biases from influencing their actions in ways they don’t intend. Those actions then may be judged, naturally. Hopefully an example that’s not too prickly: I’m from the south of the US. I don’t have a southern accent (except when drunk or sleepy!). A lot of people, myself included, have an unconscious bias that people with southern accents are less intelligent than people without. However, I’ve known lots of smart people with southern accents, and lots of unintelligent people without them. I don’t know why I have this bias: it was instilled in me by the culture I grew up in, I guess. But, because I am aware of it, I can watch out for those reflexive feelings that make it more likely for me to dismiss something someone is saying just because of their accent. I can adjust my actions to align with the kind of unbiased person I’d like to be, even though I can’t control the lingering feelings the bias creates. This is the general idea of wanting people to be aware of their implicit biases: not to judge them due to those biases, but to help them see that, due to societal or cultural or familial influence, they may not be living up to the kind of person they’d like to be. There’s a huge difference between someone who’s consciously racist and someone who has racist priors due to the culture they grew up in. Many in the latter group accidentally propagate racist systems, even though they would never want to do so if they had a conscious choice. But it’s hard for anyone to see how their subconscious affects their day-to-day opinions. The hope of teaching about implicit bias is that people can see its effect in their lives and make adjustments, hopefully reducing the systemic problems that people face in the process.
• JeremyNT 6y ago
  > What's powerful about this name change is that it pushes us to alter a habit, in my case one embedded deeply in my fingers, something that I do every day without realizing that I'm doing it. Thus it is a useful reminder of the implicit bias that contributes to the lack of diversity in tech. Never mind that the old name was harmless, the change brings repeated awareness to an important topic, and it reaches a the developer community in a targeted way This is a really interesting framing and I appreciate it. As a Caucasian American, I have been perplexed by this issue. The terminology change itself didn't especially annoy me - you don't have to change your existing repositories after all - but it didn't seem to really accomplish anything useful. My instinct was that this served no purpose beyond PR ("virtue signaling") and might be mildly harmful at worst (as a distraction from important structural issues, a constant reminder to right-wing people how annoying liberal scolds can be to them) without any upside I could actually envision. I feel like what you describe was very far from the original intent, whatever it might have been, but I appreciate that it may help in some small way I did not envision.
  • jfengel 6y ago
    I agree that it served no purpose, and yet this thread appears to have found one: the virulence of the objection is so out of proportion to the magnitude of the change that it raises the question of just what is really at the root of it. It is entirely about those "annoying liberal scolds"... and the way anything they say will be turned into an existential crisis. I feel like this is less about any actual change as a constant search for a thing to be aggrieved about, and when found, pounced on with absolutely maximum force. I think of it as "vice signaling": performing the objections without even a moment's thought, not for the purpose of refuting it but to be seen as being the most, loudest, most obnoxious opposition.
    • rrook 6y ago
      > the virulence of the objection is so out of proportion to the magnitude of the change that it raises the question of just what is really at the root of it....I think of it as "vice signaling": performing the objections without even a moment's thought, not for the purpose of refuting it but to be seen as being the most, loudest, most obnoxious opposition. I don't feel like we're reading the same thread. There are plenty of reasonable objections in these comments, and dismissing as you do is, to me, as intellectually shallow as the change in question.
• president 6y ago
  > Thus it is a useful reminder of the implicit bias that contributes to the lack of diversity in tech. Implicit bias is made to be the boogeyman when it reality, it is probably a very a small fraction of the cause of "lack of diversity" in tech, if at all. Anyone who has attended computer science courses in college anytime would know the number of black students were little to none. It has always been a pipeline problem from the education side of things. To say that typing a word that so happens to have a relation to slavery caused a "lack of diversity" in tech is the biggest farce in this industry and it is extremely sad to see this line parroted by many in the industry. I expect to be heavily downvoted and even flagged for "wrongthink" but I think it tells a lot about how irrational and unhealthy our state of discourse is in today's world.
• CountDrewku 6y ago
  "I want to share my own reactions to the name change since this is a really interesting topic. For context, I'm an African American, so many of my ancestors were slaves." Yes and so were the ancestors of every race on this planet at some point. "So, next time you are annoyed that you have to fix a script or you accidentally type master when you needed to type main, please just take a deep breath, change the name, and remember to reflect upon whether you have are subconscious habits or biases that work against diversity in tech" What exactly am I supposed to be reflecting on? I don't need useless word changes that cause issues at my job to do that. This sort of strange thinking that somehow language causes racism and not the other way around needs to stop. It lacks so much logic it's infuriating, especially for people in tech fields. Additionally, you're simplifying words to one specific meaning when in reality the word master gets used in a multitude of different contexts that don't have any relation to black slavery AT ALL. How about we do something useful with our time instead of constantly looking for victim hood and racism where it doesn't exist? I guess I should be somewhat encouraged because the fact that people have the time to worry about which words might be offensive (or make things offensive that aren't) means they're doing pretty damn well. So well, in fact, that they don't actually have enough going on in their lives and are making problems where they don't exist. The massive con here though is that eventually if you tell enough people they're victims of a system and can't help themselves it'll eventually cause real societal harm.....
  • jdkoeck 6y ago
    “Yes and so were the ancestors of every race on this planet at some point.” Great point! Everyone acts like history started in the 19th century. When you take a step back and learn about history on larger spans, it’s obvious that enslavement was common all over the globe. More people should learn that the world slave originates from the ethnic name “slav”, because Slavic people from central and eastern people were frequently enslaved by Moors, who come from the north of Africa. “The massive con here though is that eventually if you tell enough people they're victims of a system and can't help themselves it'll eventually cause real societal harm.....” Agreed, and I’m afraid we’ve already reached that point.
    • arp242 6y ago
• temp8964 6y ago
  Do you really need to type master/main frequently?
  • skohan 6y ago
    If you're switching branches frequently, or doing a lot of merging you might
  • a9h74j 6y ago
    Consider the documentation alone. A google search on "git master" shows 446,000 results -- now to be revised? A google search without the quotes shows 171,000,000 results. This is not to mention all of the company-internal documentation, correspondence, etc. which now becomes subject to pressure/demand for revision.
• newacct583 6y ago
  That's exactly how I see it too. These performative bits of nonsense are how we as a society build consensus, in this case something like "racial injustice is real, it matters, and it needs to be addressed with action". And by all getting together and renaming our white/blacklists and master branches and slave devices, we're all agreeing that this is important. And.... yeah, it's also a way to find the people who aren't willing to mildly inconvenience themselves in this pursuit. Yes, cranky posters like the OP are ALSO signaling with their refusal to go along. What they're telling the rest of us is that this racism stuff isn't something they want to care about. And that's why we do this stuff.
  • aksss 6y ago
    So it’s a purity test? Many people are just wired to reject this conformist line of thinking from the very starting point. You’re saying, let’s all do this pointless activity so we can see who has an attitude problem. It reminds me so much of how children are treated in schools or churches, and I really chafe at it. I couldn’t care less about your nominal cause or sense of self-righteousness, it’s the attitude and behavior of you imagining your fellow citizens are children that strikes me as offensive and drives resistance. I don’t doubt your good intentions but this way of thinking about solutions (your tools) is rather poisonous and places the banner under which you use them in pretty bad company.
    • newacct583 6y ago
      > So it’s a purity test? Deliberately? No, of course not. But it's a good way to tell where people stand, nonetheless. And I can tell right now that you personally feel much more strongly about opposing woke excesses than you do about opposing genuine racial injustice. So the performative nonsense has done its job.
      • stevenhuang 6y ago
        Your conclusion is not sound. To you, it is a "genuine racial injustice". To others, it is simply nothing of the sort. Said another way, I also feel much more strongly about opposing woke excesses than I do about opposing genuine racial injustice--expressly since I very much support opposing racial injustices and do not find the master/main debate as a genuine racial injustice.
• loveistheanswer 6y ago
  >So, next time you are annoyed that you have to fix a script or you accidentally type master when you needed to type main, please just take a deep breath, change the name, and remember to reflect upon whether you have are subconscious habits or biases that work against diversity in tech. This is an extremely privileged and dangerously ignorant point of view. There are more people living in slavery across the world right now than ever before in human history. Maybe we should reflect on that fact instead of simply covering up words which make us uncomfortable in a vain attempt to expiate self imposed guilt for being born with a particular shade of skin.
• throwaway894345 6y ago
  > What's powerful about this name change is that it pushes us to alter a habit, in my case one embedded deeply in my fingers, something that I do every day without realizing that I'm doing it. Thus it is a useful reminder of the implicit bias that contributes to the lack of diversity in tech. Never mind that the old name was harmless, the change brings repeated awareness to an important topic, and it reaches a the developer community in a targeted way. My guess is that it ingrains a different habit--patting ourselves on the back for 'defeating racism' via some banal change or other. Or worse, that it leads them to write off the whole movement as disingenuous for all of its focus on pointless endeavors. It's probably another drop in the bucket of things that make people actively unsympathetic and perhaps even drives them toward the open arms of the far-right. Call me cynical, but it seems unlikely that any substantial change is going to manifest from this. Just a little more self-righteousness for some people and a little more bitterness for others.
• mola 6y ago
  Just a slight perspective, I'm not from the US, I'm from israel. We have a black jewish population here, they yearned their return to Zion(israel) for thousands of years. The state of israel, invested money and effort in organizing their return. Non of their ancestors were slaves. We have social issues, mostly because the huge differences in culture and exposure to technological and educational advances. And the fact these people are immigrants. Sure there's racism, and troubles. But the narrative is completely different from the american narratives. Because of the US hagemony in entertainment and media, you see young jewish black (mostly from ethiopian origin) espousing the American narrative. This is extremely hurtful for their cause as it is not into touch with their reality. So basically, I hate the american wokeness wars because of the havoc the wreck on non american societies. Not because the blacks in the US are treated fairly, but because the media frenzy is making it impossible to actually get things better. Not much to add, thought it might be interesting.
  • arp242 6y ago
    I see the same thing in the Netherlands; the way some people talk you would almost get the impression that Floyd was killed in Amsterdam or something. Not that we don't have problems with racism – we absolutely do – but the context and reasons are just completely different to the point where the American conversation on the topic for the most part just doesn't apply at all, but unfortunately not everyone seems to have realized this.
  • selimthegrim 6y ago
    Surely that episode where they tried to give birth control to the Ethiopian refugees in their food didn’t help things?
    • worik 6y ago
      I am no fan of the Israeli state, but that is not a thing. THere were reports of racist doctors using Depo Pravera (sp?) on Ethiopian women without their consent, if true they were rouge.
      • 6y ago
• mesozoic 6y ago
  Dude your virtue is spilling out all over my nice sneakers get a handle.
• armandososa 6y ago
  > where "white" means anyone who isn't black Whoa, whoa, wait a minute there. I have mexican-indigenous blood running through my veins and coloring my skin and all I can say is this: no matter how much you've suffered, you don't get to minimize other people‘s suffering.
• cphajduk 6y ago
  To me, "master" and "slave" are historic terms used throughout electrical, software, even entertainment industries. Eliminating words from a vocabulary is very 1984-like. Those words have a deep historical meaning, allowing ourselves to just "remove them" is akin to forgetting and ignoring the dark past of slavery, rather than remembering and acknowledging it (with the hopes it will never happen again). Saying that it helps change habits (in my opinion) is analogous to saying that preventing kids from playing violent video games will reduce mass shootings (there is evidence it does not). I disagree with your premise that this pushes us to change habits and is only a mechanism to be ashamed of our shared (and dark) history. Lest we forget.
  • mathgorges 6y ago
    Github isn't eliminating any words from anyone's vocabulary. This thread has demonstrated that plenty of people are committed (har har) to calling their repository's je ne sais quoi branch `master`. While I'm with you that I don't understand how this will move the needle on racial equity, I'm uncomfortable with how visceral of a reaction a group of technology professionals is having to what is essentially a library changing a default value. Like, vocabulary changes all the time. Technology changes even more frequently. Why y'all so scared to use a different label?
    • jgwil2 6y ago
      When you write software, you should only change a default value for a good reason. This was...not that. I agree that the outrage can sometimes seem out of proportion to the change itself, but I can also understand why people who write software in general would be offended by the silliness of the whole episode.
      • mathgorges 6y ago
        Has Github stated a reason? I read the announcement from Oct. 1 [1] and it doesn't have any explanation outside of a link to a Software Freedom Conservancy [2] (the folks now maintaining Git) A lot of people here are assuming virtue signaling, but it could just as easily be "a majority number of our staff was behind this change". Unless GitHub has stated the why somewhere (I spent ~5m googling to no avail) we simply don't know. [1]: https://github.blog/changelog/2020-10-01-the-default-branch-for-newly-created-repositories-is-now-main/ https://github.blog/changelog/2020-10-01-the-default-branch-... [2]: https://sfconservancy.org/news/2020/jun/23/gitbranchname/ https://sfconservancy.org/news/2020/jun/23/gitbranchname/
• barefootcoder 6y ago
  I have an honest question for you and others who are directly impacted by this, and would love to hear your perspective. I work on a software team that has the usual level of diversity, an almost equal mix of East Asian, Indian, Middle-Eastern, and White developers, a few women, and not a single black developer. Here's the problem though... I've been part of the screening and interviewing process and we've only had ONE black person apply, he was an immigrant from Africa. He made it all of the way through the interview process, but did not get the job for reasons that I am unaware of, though I did give him a yes vote as he seemed competent and friendly to me. Given that we have screened and interviewed hundreds of applicants and as far as I'm aware he was the only black developer to apply, how can we as individuals on the team make a difference to try to be more inclusive? This has been true everywhere that I've worked. In my entire career spanning > 25 yrs I've only had the opportunity to work with one black developer. He was extremely good, but timid, very soft spoken, and too quick to self-judge, leading to him not very proactive at advertising his successes, which was unfortunate as he was doing great work, but not recognized by the majority of the team. When I later became his manager I would go out of my way to ensure that every major accomplishment of his was widely publicized, but by then the perception had already been set. It seems to me that the root problem is further up than the hiring process -- it feels like it's something that needs to start at a younger age, encouraging more people outside of the usual circle to consider tech as a career in the first place, but maybe I'm not blind to my own short-sightedness and would love to be shown where I personally can effect change.
  • vmception 6y ago
    recruit at universities where they attend. reach out to people with the skillset you like. black engineers have jobs. the government and defense contractors recruit at schools that have a higher percentage of black software engineers. its not that hard of a concept.
    • mscuwa 6y ago
      So what you are suggesting is to go beyond normal company business to recruit black developers? I.e. to give black developers an advantage over all others. That's a textbook definition of a racism, don't you think?
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• jokethrowaway 6y ago
  My reaction was to instantly think that I'm on one side trying to get things done and SJWs are on another side slowing me down. I don't care if it's a new JS library breaking dependencies to support import instead of require or if it's idiots changing names of things. These people are my enemy. If I already have zero tolerance for whatever virtue signalling crap is popular in the mostly white and affluent San Francisco, is because of behaviours like this one. On the bright side, this can help more people to discover there is a world outside of the liberal bubble, hopefully contributing to a more balanced society. (black ancestors, libertarian background)
• je42 6y ago
  currently, i have mix of projects some with main some with master as default branch. After, I short while i am getting used to main. No issues, just occasionally type main instead of master and vice versa. Further, i think i like main better. The name fits a bit better the purpose (in my flows) and it also shorter ;)
• kazinator 6y ago
  > So, next time you are annoyed that you have to fix a script or you accidentally type master when you needed to type main, please just take a deep breath, change the name, and remember to reflect upon whether you have are subconscious habits or biases that work against diversity in tech Yeah, I totally need that, because there is not enough churn in tech. For instance, every release of Android since 4 has been identical in terms of UI, so I haven't had to learn any new subconscious habit in the use of a phone. Web developers haven't had to learn new framework in over a decade; they could use this, too, not to mention C++ devs.
• rattray 6y ago
  This is definitely a helpful perspective, and I'll try to adopt your suggested practice myself. I don't know that I'd call the change "brilliant", though – for anyone not already seeking to actively reflect on their own subconscious biases, this change will probably feel less like a welcome gentle reminder and more like someone trying to control how they think (which nobody likes).
• cronix 6y ago
  > What's powerful about this name change is that it pushes us to alter a habit Yes, a habit, but nothing that has to do with race or racism. So, is it a habit worth, or needing of being broken? What was bad about this habit? How does using it in a non-racial context aide in perpetuating racism? Masters degree. Master recording. Master Chief. Master at Arms. Like Git, none of these things has anything to do with a master/slave paradigm, or even have a "slave" counterpart. There is no slave in git...there is clone and branch. There is no slave in audio recordings, you make a duplicate or copy of the master. Language is complex and nuanced. Not every word used in a race context has to do with the same word being used in another context, unless we make it so. There's nothing consciously or subconsciously racist about saying you have a masters degree, assuming you do. There are many definitions for master[1]. Only one of them deals with the disgusting practice of a person being owned as property, ie slavery, and it's not even the top definition. Should we just get rid of all of the other definitions of the word entirely because one of the definitions has some very disgusting history in the US, and historically the world at large going back thousands of years? For the record, I'm white. My ancestors were serfs, ie slaves, in Europe. Unless you're of a royal bloodline that wasn't conquered by another royal bloodline, chances are everyone has a connection to relatives that were enslaved by someone, somewhere, at some point in time[2]. Now, I can agree we should get rid of master-slavery terminology. That is blatant, imho. But "master" on its own when there is no "slave" component unless we make one up in our heads? If we follow that logic, there are a LOT of words that we should get rid of, including the word "black" to describe a color. There are a lot of racists who also use that word in a negative context to spread their racism. Where will it end? Where is the line? How much thinner should we make the dictionary so that no one is offended or subconsciously reminded of something that didn't actually have to do with the subject at hand? And after we do that, will there be newly found things that people will get offended at? Count on it. [1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/master https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/master [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_slavery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_slavery
• deleted 6y ago
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• sorokod 6y ago
  This is a thoughtful and patronising post. Since you give advice frelly, let me offer one back: every time you type the word 'slave', take a deep breath and consider the etymology of that word.
• nullserver 6y ago
  20 years ago, Now and then someone would make a fuss about hard drives. Specifically master and slave drives. Wasn’t a common complaint and was treated with eye rolls. Maybe others had different experiences. Last few years there has been a dramatic change in fringe groups becoming the masters of speech. At least for those outside the Bay Area.
• gamblor956 6y ago
  It's extremely disappointing to see that the primary reaction on HN to this terminology chain is to bemoan the minor inconvenience of having to type fewer letters or run a replace-all on your scripts. Oh god, the horror. It's almost like people on HN have never used a text replacement tool before. A "master recording" is the immutable "official recording" and is the source from which all copies are made, but the "master" in this term comes from the historical use of a "mastering lathe" to create vinyl records. It's quite clear that a "master branch" in git is not like a master recording, because a master branch isn't immutable and moreover is the branch that changes get merged into. Given that the "master" in historic VCS programs (like Bitkeeper) is explicitly based on master/slave terminology, that git deliberately picked the term to maintain continuity of context with other VCS systems, and that "master" is ultimately a inaccurate description of what a "master branch" actually is in the context of git, it absolutely should be changed to something less inflammatory, like "main" or "working" or "local."
  • Cogito 6y ago
    > Given that the "master" in historic VCS programs (like Bitkeeper) is explicitly based on master/slave terminology, that git deliberately picked the term to maintain continuity of context with other VCS systems... While some VCS programs may have used master/slave (I think maybe CVS did?), BitKeeper did not. The (likely) basis for the belief that BitKeeper use master/slave and git followed them, the GNOME mailing list post[0] that reignited this discussion in 2019, was retracted the next year[1]. I wrote a summary of the history[2] for Git Rev News, the git developers newsletter. In short, the usage didn't come from BitKeeper, and was intended to mean 'master copy'. After the article was published, Aaron Kushner from BitKeeper reached out and gave me some more history on the usage of 'slave repository' in that one particular spot in BitKeeper[3]: it was a presentation for a client that was already using master/slave terminology and so the same terms were used in the presentation. 0: https://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2019-May/msg00066.html https://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2019-May/... 1: https://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2020-June/msg00023.html https://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2020-June... 2: https://git.github.io/rev_news/2020/07/29/edition-65/ https://git.github.io/rev_news/2020/07/29/edition-65/ 3: https://twitter.com/AndrewArdill/status/1350537333292949505 https://twitter.com/AndrewArdill/status/1350537333292949505
• gameswithgo 6y ago
  main is less typing, big win for me!
• dennis_moore 6y ago
  > So, next time you are annoyed that you have to fix a script or you accidentally type master when you needed to type main, please just take a deep breath, change the name, and remember to reflect upon whether you have are subconscious habits or biases that work against diversity in tech. Could you please give me specific examples of what biases I, a software developer, may have? I like to think that I have always treated people with respect, judging them only by the character of their work and interactions with me, as opposed to stereotypes based on characteristics outside of their control. Perhaps I am wrong, but reflecting did not help maybe because I have had found no luck finding a thorough, rational source to educate myself on these issues that doesn't just echo meaningless politically or emotionally loaded statements. I am thus genuinely interested to hear from someone like you who is directly affected by these issues.
• vagrantJin 6y ago
  > remember to reflect upon whether you have are subconscious habits or biases that work against diversity in tech. I find statements like these to be well meaning straight from the pulpit of a culture that finds cancellation or edits prefferable to new and better. It's decline. Regression. It's looking at the present solely through the eyes of the past and a refusal to look an inch forward. A word won't change the state. It's meta. The nub of the issue is that a black kid who might have an interest in computing has access to one, does he have that as a choice, and can anyone help or nudge him towards an academic pursuit in computing. That's where the work is.
• ycombigator 6y ago
  This is interesting. I'm white. The word master doesn't occupy this space in my head and never has. I've associated this term primarily with teachers from a very early age. There's obviously the master-slave terminology in tech, but that really doesn't map to slavery in my head. This is probably because I'm from the British Isles which has a very different history in terms of slavery. For me, I felt this change was really about the impact this term has for people who have been impacted by slavery having to continue to use these terms, which I thought many must felt comes across as, at best, insensitive. Hence, I felt the cost of doing this seems reasonable. I mean, if we used the term holocaust for wiping a hard drive at some point people would probably have said - "err, yeah, no that's just a bad idea", because it would be offensive.